Christmas Vacation

We spent this Christmas in Springville at Freddy & Laurie's (Jason's brother and his wife) home. We had a lot of fun. The best part was having Jason back. He had been gone for 2 months by the time we saw him.

The boys and I headed up to Springville on Dec 21st. My Mom had bought tickets to A Christmas Carol at the Hale Center Theater for the 22nd. Regan and Spencer really enjoyed that. They had front row seats and were able to sit with their cousins. It was a lot of fun.

On the way home from the play, I was talking with Jason, who was driving down from Washington with his parents. From what he was telling me on the phone, they were still a few hours away, but when I pulled up to his brother's house he was waiting outside for us. I was so excited to see him that I slammed 2 of my fingers in the car door. Smart. Aside from my bleeding swollen fingers, it was a joyous reunion.

Christmas day was fun. Santa brought Regan a remote control dragon fly. I think Jason's had more fun with it than he has.

Santa brought Spencer some Harry Potter wands. Due to a last minute request, Santa could only find some $2 locally carved wands. Spencer saw them next to his stocking and was a bit confused. "Sticks?". He didn't immediately recognize that they were wands.

Santa brought Ben a little car that he can scoot around on. All the kids seemed to like that. Unfortunately, Santa didn't build it with an off switch. After a few days of listening to the Tow-Mater song, we were all ready to chuck it out into the snow.

(Here's Ben with a few of Spencer's "sticks'")

We spent Christmas afternoon up at my parents house, where we all scored with another load of gifts.

We did some fun things with the remainder of our vacation. One day we went cross country skiing. Even I was able to participate in that. Ben rode on Jason's back in the backpack and seemed to enjoy himself. Regan and Spencer seemed to have a lot of fun as well. Just as we were starting out, Spencer told me that this was one of his best days ever. About two minutes later, he fell down and started bawling. So much for being a best day. Luckily, it was short lived. He skied the rest of the way with Grandpa Murray, and although they both fell down quite a bit, they had a great time. Regan was like lightning all over the place. He would fall down about every two minutes, but it didn't seem to bother him any. He was back up as quick as he fell down and on his way again.

On one of the days we went to some of the free museums that they have on the BYU campus. We thought they were quite impressive.

We also went on a few sledding outings. The kids really enjoyed that.

Towards the end of our trip, Jason's mother fell down the stairs outside Freddy's house. It was pretty scary. She ended up in the hospital for 3 days, but luckily no broken bones or permanent damage. We extended our trip an extra day until she was released from the hospital. She was still in some pain, but they were able to make the drive back to Washington. We're thankful that she is okay.

We came home on Jan. 2nd. It's nice to vacation, but always good to come home to our own beds and get the kids back into some routine.